Don't dump on tourists

Those who blame tourism for dissolving ties in small
towns and increasing living costs are on the wrong track, say some
planning experts. It's "the real estate community that is
corrupting towns," said Myles Rademan, public affairs director for
Park City, Utah, at a Telluride, Colo., summer travel symposium.
Other panelists also targeted escalating real estate prices for
forcing out old-timers from the community they'd helped create,
reports the Telluride Times Journal. But few ideas emerged to halt
the erosion of small town values. Telluride collects a 3 percent
real estate transfer tax to make growth pay for its impacts. But
that creates little incentive to slow fast turnover of resort
property. Real estate tax revenue now funds some 14 percent of
Telluride's $11 million budget for 1994, according to Kevin Swain,
the town's financial director.